WiMedia Alliance and Ecma International Formalize Joint Development Relationship

(Business News & Technology News, 25 Jul 2008)

The WiMedia Alliance, a not-for-profit open industry association that promotes and enables the rapid adoption, regulation, standardization and multi-vendor interoperability of ultra-wideband (UWB) worldwide, and Ecma International, a non-profit industry association of technology developers, vendors and users focused on information and communication technology (ICT) and consumer electronics (CE), have agreed upon a relationship wherein the development of specific standards will be conducted jointly between WiMedia engineers and Ecma member companies. When the work on a standard is completed, it will then be sent through WiMedia's approval process resulting in WiMedia members' intellectual property being bound to the work. Ecma will submit completed standards through their approval process which likewise binds Ecma members' intellectual property.

The structure of this relationship between an internationally recognized standards development organization and an industry special interest group is unique in that it allows standards development work to be done with significantly increased speed and efficiency. The WiMedia Alliance continues to focus on its core activities: preceding-standardization such as research, and post-standardization such as promotion and certification. Complementary to those activities, experts from WiMedia and Ecma will cooperatively develop standards under Ecma's due standardization process, efficiently and in a timely fashion.

"We chose to work with Ecma to develop this new structure, because they had a firm understanding of the issues which cause standards to be delayed unnecessarily and had already addressed the overwhelming majority of these issues. Ecma's willingness to consider non-traditional strategies to standards development gave us the necessary flexibility to do something new," says Stephen Wood, President of the WiMedia Alliance.

Ecma has established rules that favor consensus while balancing the interests of all stakeholders small and large. Additionally, the structure of this relationship provides access for WiMedia members to other standards which Ecma has expertise in developing without the need to replicate that body of work.

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